Cracking the Code
Phonics
Year 1
February 2012
Objectives
O to consider children’s early experience of
learning how to read
O to be introduced to phonics and phonological
awareness
O to be introduced to the Rose Report
O to understand how children use phonics to
read unknown words
O to know a range of teaching strategies to help
children develop understanding of phonics
Request students find any of the missing
books from Hampshire Library Service:
Baker J
Browne A
Hoffman M
Kelly J
Norriss A
Sheldon D
Tomlinson J
Dark
O Wormell C
O Mathhews A
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
Window
Voices in the Park
Amazing Grace
Scoop (2 copies)
Control Z
Whale Song
The Owl Who was Afraid of the
Two Frogs
Bob Robber and Dancing Jane
Reflection on SE1
Discuss in groups:
O What English teaching did you observe?
O What English teaching did you take part in?
O How did your Lost and Found guided reading go?
O How did your experiences correspond to what was
learned at uni in S1 ?
Phonics
O What phonics teaching did you observe on school
experience?
The Simple View of Reading (The
Rose Cross)
How do children develop as
readers?
cueing
strategies
comprehension:
literal and
inferential
phonemic
awareness
grapheme phoneme
correspondence
motivation
enjoyment
choices
phonic
knowledge
experience of
different genres
talking about
books and
reading
What is auditory discrimination?
It can be defined as:
O An awareness of sound all around us. Starting before birth
we hear different sounds and can distinguish between them
What is phonological awareness?
O The awareness of sounds within words
O Syllables
O Onset and rime
O Phonemes
O Refers only to speech i.e. you don’t need to be able to
read
Phonemic awareness: Phonics
O Phonics is the ability to apply that phonemic
knowledge to the alphabet.
O To be able to apply sounds to graphemes.
O Phonics is when a child can attach a drawing from the
symbols in the alphabet to a sound – it is a code
The alphabetic principle
O There are 44 phonemes
O A phoneme can be represented by one or more letters
(cat, that, hair, caught)
O The same phoneme can be represented/spelled in
more than one way (Rain, may, lake)
O The same spelling may represent more than one
phoneme (mean deaf)
Vowels and consonants
O Vowels are phonemes where air flows through the
mouth unobstructed, e.g. the letters a, e, i, o, and u
O Consonants are phonemes marked by constriction or
closure in the breath channel - letters other than a, e, i,
o and u.
What are phonemes and
graphemes
O A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a
word e.g.
p-i-n
m-a-n
c-o-t
O A grapheme is the written representation of a
sound
O A really useful guide is available on the strategy
website at
Phoneme hearing exercises
a) How many phonemes
in:
O cat
O dog
O ship
O leg
O chin
O Pen
O Crop
O lap
spin
trip
map
shop
net
photo
stick
thin
Digraphs-consonant
O A digraph is two letters together which make one
sound.
O There are consonant digraphs e.g:
sh, th, ch, ng, ph
As a group can you make a list of ten words using
consonant digraphs on your paper?
O What do you notice about the phonemes and
graphemes?
Digraphs-vowel
O There are 5 vowels in the alphabet but more vowel
sounds
Trigraphs
O A trigraph is a three letter grapheme where
three letters represent one phoneme
O Can you think of any words which have
phonemes which need three letters?
O Write them on your wipe board with a partner
O Can you think of any words which have
phonemes with 4 letters?
What is a split digraph?
O A vowel digraph is split by a consonant.
O gate
O lake
O made
O site
O time
What is synthetic phonics?
O Children are taught individual letters, or groups of
letters and their sounds. They learn to blend
(synthesise) letters together to form words
O They read unknown words by breaking them down in to
phonemes (decoding). E.g. c-a-t
Analytic phonics
Analytic phonics
O Children are taught to decode words they do
not know by using words or word parts they do
know.
O Using onset and rime is part of this system. If
you can hear and spell c-at, then you can work
out how to spell b-at. (analogy)
O It works only for words where the rime is spelt
identically.
What does teaching look like?
Letters and Sounds
Phase 1
O Prepares children for phonic work. Based on listening and discriminating between sounds.
Phase 2
O Single phonemes/graphemes are introduced. They understand that segmenting and blending
are reversible processes. Read and spell simple CVC words.
Phase 3
O In this phase the digraphs are introduced but not the split digraphs.
Phase 4
O Here children are introduced to the adjacent consonants – e.g. ‘slip’ and ‘camp’.
Phase 5
O Here they will learn that some spellings have alternative pronunciations e.g. cow and blow. And
some sounds have alternative spellings e.g. ‘ jump’ and ‘hedge’.
Phase 6
O A lot of teaching in this phase revolves around spelling e.g. prefixes ‘return’ and suffixes
‘sitting’. Also reading for meaning is empahasised.
Phonics games on Web
O http://www.bbc.co.u
k/schools/wordsand
pictures/phonics/sa
ndcastle/index.shtml
O BBC Words and
Pictures
O do the crab/
sandcastle one
http://phonicsplay.co.u
k/
phonicsplay.co.uk
O go to phase 2 and
do 'buried Treaure'
game
Directed Task
O Directed task
O Read through the handout provided
O Choose at least one activity
O Make this and bring to share at next week’s
seminar
Web links for the most commonly used
phonics programmes
O ReadWriteInc
O
O
O
O
O
http://www.ruthmiskinliteracy.com/default.aspx
Jolly Phonics http://www.jollylearning.co.uk/
Collins Big Cat Phonics
http://www.collinseducation.com/series/pages/seriesshow.
aspx?Seriestitle=Collins%20Big%20Cat&Level1=Primary&Le
vel2=Literacy
THRASS http://www.thrass.co.uk/teaching.htm
Letters and Sounds
http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/8496
9
The library Early Reading Collection has copies of many of
the most used programmes in school
Free resources
O http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/
O http://www.thrass.co.uk/downloads.htm